Product Description

"These fields no longer yield grain the way they used to," complains the farmer. "We should settle new lands before our food runs out. Why don't we start farming olives, like our neighbors?".

The cart-driver nods: "Ever since them city folks started worshipping San Giorgio I have to travel further and further to new building sites. I'm on my way now to the new inn they built. I'll change horses there and deliver this load," he gestures towards the pile of wood in the cart with his head "to the sea beyond. Gonna start some fisheries there. It is said we'll conquer those olive-farmers before long. But their land is even more polluted than ours."

The farmer nods his head in reply. As the cart starts moving again, he returns to the field to harvest the last bushels of grain, growing between the stumps of what used to be a lush forest -- three turns ago.

Antiquity is a strategy game for 2-4 players. It is set in an environment loosely modeled on Italy in the late Middle Ages. Players choose their own victory condition: they can focus on population growth, trade, conquest, or city building by choosing their patron saint.

Each strategy requires a completely different style of play. Or you can choose to adore Santa Maria, the most powerful saint of all -- but you'll be expected to build a civilization twice as impressive as any other player.

While your economy is constantly improving, with more and more advanced cities bringing new options each turn, the land around your cities is slowly being depleted, forcing you to travel further and further to gather your raw materials -- until finally, there is no more land left to farm. Let's hope one of you has won the game before that time!

Product Reviews

I’ve played 6 games of Antiquity by Splotter, 4
of which where two player with my wife, and 2
other three player games. I’ve found Antiquity
to be quite enjoyable, and a very wife friendly
game. I *highly* recommend it for people who
enjoy builder and resource management games.

Now for some of the highlights.

Game Length: Per the designers the game can
be played in 2 hours. My first game took
Approximately 4 ¼ hours, the three player
games took 3 & 3 ½ hours, and my last two
player game took 2 ½ hours. We play the game
slowly, so I suspect faster players could easily
play two players in about 2 hours, and I would
expect everyone’s first game to take closer to 4
hours as they learn the game.

Components: are pretty good. Upon opening the
box, I have to admit I was disappointed with
what I found. I had moved forward from the
Avalon Hill big box full of cardboard style of
games when I migrated into Euro games.
Antiquity is kind of a step back to those old
Avalon Hill games. The individual player boards,
like the ones you find in Puerto Rico or Princes of
Florence, are large paper booklets, not
cardboard. The larger size does allow the city
buildings to be closer in size and style to Princes
of Florence then Puerto Rico, and the player
aides are functional for game play. Everything
works fine, it’s just not spectacular. The game
board is modular, loosely similar to Attika’s, but
the hexes are much smaller then I would have
liked, and, as a result, the resource pieces are
much smaller then they should be. However,
Antiquity is a game that takes up a LOT of space,
and I’m sure some sacrifices had to be made to
save on space and costs, and scale obviously
was one way. Now, if the components are
inferior to what is the Euro standard, then
Splotter makes up for this with quantity,
Antiquity has *TONS* of bits. Another reason for
my initial disappointment with the components is
the matte finished, muted artwork; however
over time I’ve decided the artwork is an
appropriate style for the game and is quite good
in form and function. After 6 plays I’ve notice
more wear on some of the counters and board
pieces then I would have expected, but this is
negligible due to the quantity of pieces. So
overall, I would say the components are
functional, with a good look to them, and a
decent value for the price ~ 60 Euros.

Rules: Outstanding - nearly perfect. You can tell
this is a well ‘developed’ game that underwent
quality play testing. The rules are clearly and
concisely written, well organized, and have very
good illustrations. When there is a question, the
answer is where you would expect to find it, and
the answers to the questions raised on the geek
have been answered in a manner consistent with
the rules. More companies should follow the lead
here. A+

Play Summary: Each player is given a player
board with a 7x7 city map, an individual set of
buildings, a set of inn markers, 4 city markers,
and 20 men. The game board is constructed
from 16 two sided tiles, similar to Attika. 2 tiles
are added to the board for each player. Each
player then places their start city on one of the
starting tiles and game play begins.
Antiquity is played in turns made up of 10
phases. The 10 phases are ‘All Rise’, ‘City
Building’, ‘Turn Order’, ‘Countryside
Building’, ‘Store
Goods’, ‘Harvest’, ‘Explore’, ‘Famine’, ‘Pollution’,
and ‘Check Victory’.

All Rise – all players remove their workers from
their city buildings

City Building – all players simultaneously spend
their resources to build buildings, and then select
which buildings they will use by manning them.
(shown by putting a man cube on the building)
Only one man can be placed on each building,
and unmanned buildings usually provide no
benefit. Each player starts with a 7x7 player
board, and can add up to 3 additional 6x6 boards
by building extra cities. Each building has a
specific cost and gives a specific benefit. Some
examples of the buildings and their benefits are
the following: House - adds one man to the
worker pool, Brewery – allows players to build
inns outside of cities, Cathedral – needed to win
(when a player builds a cathedral, they dedicate
it to a patron saint. The select Saint lists a
specific winning condition that the builder must
fulfill, and also gives the builder a benefit – more
on this later), Market – if manned may trade 2
goods for any 1 good, Dump – if manned,
reduces the pollution a city produces by 4,
Harbor – if manned a players ‘zone of control’
may include water, Store – if manned it will hold
a number of goods equal to its size, and the all
important Cart Shop – a man added to a cart
shop will be sent to do a task outside the city,
and if you want to send more men out to the
fields then you will need multiple cart shops.

Order of Play – Determine the player order,
based upon the number of manned cart shops
each player has, fewest going before most.

Countryside Building – Preformed in player turn
order – Each player may do one action for each
manned cart shop. Possible actions are build an
additional city, build an inn, build a fishery, plant
a farm, create a lumberjack, and build a mine.
Each action must be preformed within a
players ‘zone of control’; 2 hexes out from cities
and inns (3 if the player has a manned Stable in
their city). Your zone of control may overlap
with other players, so turn order is important as
you try to claim valuable resource hexes before
your opponent. When you build a new city or
inn, you pay the listed cost in resources, place
the building on the game board, and return the
man to the city. For all other actions, the man is
placed on a hex and will harvest resources for a
number of turns equal to the number of
corresponding resource hexes it borders. (If you
put a lumberjack on a forest hex and there are 2
forest hexes boarding that hex, then the
lumberjack will harvest 1 pieces of wood for the
next 3 turns.) Each worker will require a seed
cost, usually 1 wood, or 1 matching resource for
farms. Also, a pollution/depletion marker is
added to each harvest hex to indicate that the
hex has been depleted and may not be used in
future turns. So you must use your resources
wisely and continually expand into new areas or
face a rapidly diminishing supply of usable
territory.

Store Goods – Each player that still has goods
remaining must store them (place them in a
manned store building) or discard them.

Harvest – claim one resource for each field
worker. If this is the last resource connected to
the worker, then the worker is returned to the
city.

Explore – on each game board tile there are two
exploration hexes that are covered with a face
down chit at the start of the game. (the chits are
comprised of 1 of each farm resource per player)
Each player who manned their explorer building
during the city phase may claim 1 chit that is
within their zone of control. This is done in turn
order.

Famine – Each player checks to see if they can
feed their people. There is a general famine
level for all players, starting the game at zero
and rising by one at the end of each famine
phase. Also some of the exploration chits will
raise the famine level one space. Each player
must have food equal to the current famine
level. In game terms, a player must have
harvested and/or stored a number of food chits
at least equal to the current famine level;
otherwise that player receives a number of
graves equal to the deficit. Example, Player A
has 1 wheat & 1 fish with the famine level at 4,
Player A receives 2 graves which must be
immediately placed onto one of their city spaces.
If player A no longer has any free spaces then
the graves must be placed on buildings. Players
may not subsequently build on city spaces with
graves, nor can they use a building with graves
on it. If a player is out of spaces to place graves
on, they are out of the game. A player can
reduce the famine level by one by buying a
fountain, or can permanently add 3 to their food
total by building a granary. Famine will also be
more of a factor in three and four player games
since there are more explorer tokens available
and they will be uncovered faster. (In a two
player game, the maximum the famine can be
on turn 1 is 2, and only if both players explore 1
hex, likewise in a four player game, famine
could be at 4, and much more of an issue)

Pollution – resolved in turn order. Each city
produces 3 pollution counters. Each player totals
their pollution and places the pollution counters
on unpolluted hexes within their ‘zone of
control’; this hex may overlap with another
player’s ZOC. Yes, this makes the hex unusable
for future harvests. If a player has a manned
dump, it reduces that players pollution by 4 and
other players may *not* play pollution within
your ZOC. In addition, for each fountain a player
has built (no man needed) their pollution is
reduce by one (permanently) & the famine level
counter is lowered one space (only on the turn it
was built).

Check Victory – All players who have built a
cathedral, and as a result have chosen a patron
saint, check to see if they have met their saints
winning condition. Each Saint provides
a ‘privilege’ to the selecting player, thereby
giving players an incentive to choose their Saint
early. The winning conditions and privileges are
the following: Santa Barbara – build 1 of every
city building – privilege, may rearrange your
city, San Giorgio – win if all of one other players
ZOC is within your ZOC – privilege, gain 1 fish
(food) for every cathedral built, San Nicolo –
build all 20 houses/men – privilege when buying
2 houses/men the lower cost house is free, San
Christofori- collect 3 of each food & luxury
resource - privilege a players cathedral may be
used to store any amount of goods, and finally
Santa Maria – fulfill any 2 of the victory
conditions/ privilege get all other privileges. If
things are going poorly a player may raze their
cathedral if they have a manned Department of
Philosophy, and may then rebuild the cathedral
dedicated to a new patron saint.

The game is really a simple system with a
plethora of choices and options. Do you devote
your resources to building your economy, do you
expand your zone of control to gain access to
more resources to continue fueling your
economy, do you try to control your famine
and/or pollution, and how much do you focus on
reaching your victory conditions. If you like
resource management and building games,
Antiquity will get under your skin.

On Saturday, we taught the game to a friend of
ours, on Tuesday he sent me the following
email: “Marc, I can't get Antiquity out of my
mind. Thanks... When can we play again?” My
feelings exactly.

As I’ve already mentioned, my wife loves
Antiquity. It may be her favorite game. It is a
very woman friendly game. Antiquity is void of
many of the elements that make a game less
enjoyable to the women I’ve played games with;
no battle, no loss of units, no bidding, no allying
with others to bring a third player down. The
only real ‘direct’ conflict is the battle for the
limited resource hexes, otherwise Antiquity is
almost entirely about improving your own
position, and planning for the future.

With no luck, and little direct conflict, I’ve seen
some complaints that Antiquity is a game that
can be “solved”, find the optimal building
sequence and repeat game after game…. I
haven’t found one in the 6 games I’ve played so
far. I believe there are enough changes to the
board from game to game to prevent this. Also,
there are many steps you can take to interfere
with your opponents plans: you can grab plenty
of explorer chips to quickly raise the level of
famine, you can build into your opponent’s ZOC,
harvest the hexes within their ZOC & pollute the
others, and on top of that you can man a dump
and force them to pollute uncontested areas.
You can choose Saint Giorgio and force them to
be cognizant of your building plans. In effect,
there are a myriad of play & victory condition
options that will keep the game fresh for many
years to come.

Another complaint that has merit is that many of
the pieces are small. If putting cardboard
counters on hexes and then taking them off is
not your idea of fun, avoid Antiquity. I’ve found
the pleasure of the game easily overcomes the
issues of dealing with the counters.

I rate Antiquity as the best game of 2004, and
the most intriguing game I’ve played in years. If
you can afford the cost, it is well worth owning.